Strontium Carbonate market demand analysis and price trend at China

With the implementation of China’s storage and warehousing policy, the prices of major non-ferrous metals such as copper oxide, zinc, and aluminum will definitely pull back. This trend has been reflected in the stock market last month. In the short term, the prices of bulk commodities have at least stabilized, and there is still room for further declines in the prices of products that have increased significantly in the previous period. Looking at the disk last week, the price of rare earth praseodymium oxide has continued to increase. At present, it can basically be judged that the price will be firm for a while in the range of 500,000-53 million yuan per ton. Of course, this price is only the manufacturer’s listed price and some adjustments in the futures market. There is no obvious price fluctuation from the offline physical transaction. Moreover, the consumption of praseodymium oxide itself in the ceramic pigment industry is relatively concentrated, and most of the sources are mainly from Ganzhou Province and Jiangxi Province. In addition, the shortage of zirconium silicate in the market caused by the continued tension of zircon sand has shown an aggravating trend. Including the domestic Guangdong Province and Fujian Province zirconium silicate manufacturers are currently very tight, and the quotations are also very cautious, the price of zirconium silicate products around 60 degrees is about 1,1000-13,000 yuan per ton. There is no obvious fluctuation in market demand, and manufacturers and clients are bullish on the price of zirconium silicate in the future.

In terms of glazes, with the gradual elimination of bright tiles from the market, the melt block companies represented by Zibo in Shandong Province are accelerating their transformation to full-glazed polishing. According to the data released by the China Building and Sanitary Ceramics Association, the national ceramic tile output in 2020 has exceeded 10 billion square meters, of which the output of fully polished glazed tiles will account for 27.5% of the total. Moreover, some manufacturers were still changing their production lines at the end of last year. If conservatively estimated, the output of polished glazed tiles in 2021 will continue to be around 2.75 billion square meters. Calculating the combination of surface glaze and polished glaze together, the national demand for polished glaze is about 2.75 million tons. And only the top glaze needs to use strontium carbonate products, and the top glaze will use less than the polished glaze. Even if it is calculated according to the proportion of surface glaze used for 40%, if 30% of polished glaze products use strontium carbonate structural formula. The annual demand for strontium carbonate in the ceramic industry is estimated to be about 30,000 tons in the polished glaze. Even with the addition of a small amount of melt block， the demand for strontium carbonate in the entire domestic ceramic market should be around 33,000 tons.

According to relevant media information, there are currently 23 strontium mining areas of various types in China, including 4 large-scale mines, 2 medium-sized mines, 5 small-scale mines, and 12 small mines. China’s strontium mines are dominated by small mines and small mines, and township and individual mining occupies an important position. As of January-October 2020, China’s exports of strontium carbonate amounted to 1,504 tons, and China’s imports of strontium carbonate from January to October 2020 amounted to 17,852 tons. The main export regions of China’s strontium carbonate are Japan, Vietnam, the Russian Federation, Iran and Myanmar. The main sources of my country’s strontium carbonate imports are Mexico, Germany, Japan, Iran and Spain, and the imports are 13,228 tons, 7236.1 tons, 469.6 tons, and 42 tons, respectively. With 12 tons. From the perspective of major manufacturers, in China’s domestic strontium salt industry, strontium carbonate product manufacturers are concentrated in Hebei, Jiangsu, Guizhou, Qinghai and other provinces, and their scale of development is relatively large. The current production capacity is 30,000 tons/year and 1.8 10,000 tons/year, 30,000 tons/year, and 20,000 tons/year, these areas are concentrated in China’s current most important strontium carbonate suppliers.

Regarding market demand factors, the shortage of strontium carbonate is only a temporary shortage of mineral resources and environmental protection. It can be foreseen that market supply should return to normal after October. At present, the price of Strontium Carbonate in the ceramic glaze market continues to fall. The quotation is in the price range of 16000-17000 yuan per ton. In the offline market, due to the high price of strontium carbonate, most companies have already phased out or improved the formula and no longer use strontium carbonate. Some professional glaze people also introduced that the glaze polishing formula does not necessarily use the formula of strontium carbonate structure. The structure ratio of barium carbonate can also meet the technical requirements of rapid and other processes. Therefore, from the perspective of the market outlook, it is still possible that the price of strontium carbonate will fall back to the range of 13000-14000 by the end of the year.